So this is the last day of the year and I have decided to let this be my last entry. Since I got quite addicted to prince of tennis this year I thought I’ll put this piece of writing up, which basically involves talking about most of the players. This relates to my prince of tennis fan fiction as it includes the character Tanako Ashita…The scenario is that all the schools are gathered together in order for some sort of training, and then Shiraishi heard that Ashita might come and see him, so he decided to write a letter to her, describing the people that she will probably meet…

A letter from Shiraishi to Ashita

…I will certainly be very glad to see you but I think I really should warn you about the people you might meet, as well as advising you about who you should ask direction from.
First of all, please try to find one of Shitenhouji’s members. I don’t need to mention Koharu and Yuuji but both Kenya and Chitose will be really helpful, and Gin is actually a very nice person. (1)
As for Zaizen…I think he will be polite to you as he should know who you are. I am not sure if Kin-chan remembers you as that kid’s memory is absolutely hopeless, but this shouldn’t matter much because I will probably be with him. (otherwise he will end up doing something disastrous…not that this hasn’t happened already.)

Seigaku’s uniform is blue and white and remember, their coach is an old woman, not one of the two wearing glasses! This is very important! The one with the longer hair is their buchou and don’t be offended if he just speaks to you in point form as he does that with pretty much everyone. Whatever you do, do not accept any sort of food and drink from the other glasses guy! In fact, it is probably better to not talk to that guy at all as I think he is a bit of a stalker due to what I have heard…
I think the best thing to do will be asking direction from the guy with the really weird hair. He is their fuku-buchou and he is probably one of the nicest and considerate guys I have ever met, although the people from Seigaku in general are quite nice.
Well…I am a bit uncertain about the guy wearing a bandana…it is not as if he has been rude to me but I got quite a scare when he suddenly glared at me the other day. I also got quite a scare from Kawamura Takashi- he started to scream ‘BURNING!!!’ when he picked up a racquet. (although Gin tells me he is a very nice person.)
There is also Echizen Ryoma…Kin-chan’s ‘Koshimae’. He usually wears a cap. He is…he is very different from Kin-chan in many ways. I think to an extent he is quite obsessed with winning and the problem is that he wants people to know it- that he will keep on winning. Well, he is only a kid so don’t be offended if he says something rude about Shitnehouji, or about me.

I think that is the main cast from Seigaku. Hyotei is here too, the school that Kenya’s cousin attends. They have a greyish white uniform. You will be able to recognize Kenya’s cousin really easily due to his accent.
Their buchou also have a very particular way of talking: he always talks like this: “ore-sama this”, “ore-sama that”. He is also an absolute narcissist! He actually said this during my match with him yesterday: “ore-sama’s beautiful skill is glowing more brightly each day.” I almost failed to serve the ball across the net as that was just unbelievable! I think that could rival with the time I first saw Koharu and Yuuji’s synchronising. (2)
But I heard that the nicest guy in Hyotei is the one called ‘Ootori’. (he is one of the tallest guy in Hyotei and he’s not the one that only says ‘usu’.) he’ll probably be standing next to a guy wearing a cap backward. They’re double partners and they seem to be really good friends. Ootori certainly seem to worship his senpai. I can’t help but to wonder…was I like that with Nakakurai-buchou? I hope not…I really hope that I wasn’t that that bad… (3)
By the way, Hyotei have this really weird second year who seem to be planning world domination due to this phrase that he keep on saying the whole time. Thank goodness that Zaizen is not like that at all.

St Rudolph’s uniform is white and brown, and I think it has St Rudolph printed in quite large letters somewhere. Please avoid them if you can as some of them have been bothering me quite a bit. Fuji Shuusuke’s younger brother is in that school and he is really eager to beat me as I managed to win against his brother. I don’t really understand him- he seems to really look up to his brother, yet he almost threw a tantrum when I said: “Oh, so you are Fuji Shuusuke’s younger brother.” I’ve never seen him before while I have at least played against his brother, so of course I’ll say that!
There is also this other guy who insists that I am one of his destined rivals or something like that since I beat Fuji Shuusuke, who is also his destined rival. But he does not seem to be really good as I managed to beat him with a score of 6-0. He is certainly not on the same level as Fuji Shuusuke. Later on, I asked Fuji Shuusuke about this and he told me that he have no idea about who that guy is at all. (4)

Chitose’s friend Tachibana is the buchou of Fudomine and their uniform is all black with Fudomine in large letters at the back, a bit like my uniform. Tachibana is really easy to recognise as his hair is dyed blond.
The guy with the longest hair in their team is Ibu Shinji and he has this habit of muttering out aloud. Tachibana and the rest of the team have been telling everyone that he just talk that way, That he really is not doing this as an insult. So don’t be offended if he says something like this to you: “Take you to the buchou of Shitenhouji? Why do you have to ask me as I could be doing something else with this time. Why can’t you try to find him yourself? I don’t even know where he is but I guess I should find you as other wise you will say I am rude so I better do that then.” Something like that as that was what he said to us when Kenya asked him where Kamio is.
I am quite relieved that Kenya doesn’t play tennis in the exact same way as Kamio, even though their playing style is really similar. Because I really don’t want to see our fuku-buchou screaming out: “I am going to go with the rhythm!”, “The rhythm is getting faster!” in his game. (5)

If you see anyone wearing purple, then run the other way. The team from Higa chuu is absolutely infamous as they actually hit Rokkaku’s coach and then tried to do a similar thing with Seigaku’s coach. To be honest I really can’t stand seeing them because they remind me of the mistake I had made: being so obsessed with winning.
I know that I will never do such a thing as hitting someone with tennis but it…it still scares me, Ashita, to realise that they are driven by the exact same reason as I was. I am really not that much unlike them…doing something I did not like for the sake of winning…even hurting other people. That is why I am quite envious…almost jealous of Koharu and Yuuji: their joking tennis is something that they enjoy, as well as something that makes people laugh. (6)

By the way, if you see someone wearing all green, run from them too. I heard that Yamabuki has a delinquent in the team and apparently he knows karate. I know that you are really good at karate too but I think it is better to avoid them, just to be on the safe side.
The other reason Yamabuki is so dangerous is because of their fuku-buchou...he have a tendency to flirt with any pretty looking girl and achieve great success. It is not that I don’t trust you but remember what you yourself said when you saw some girls trying to give me chocolates on valentine day?

Then there is Rokkako…I still don’t really know much about them other then the fact that they have a first year buchou. I should really go and talk to him because I don’t want to see another person repeating what I did. But in general, the whole team seemed to be very friendly. (7)

Lastly, there is Rikkai. They have this mustard colour like uniform. Ashita, there are two very important things you have to remember, even if you forgot all the other stuff I have said, you really should remember the following.
First of all, the guy wearing a cap is not the coach, however much you might think that he looks like one. He is their fuku-buchou, so he is our age, even if he appears to be older then sensei. (8)
Secondly, do not say the word sea-weed around them, as their second year goes psycho if he hears that word. We ended up having to literally drag him off the court during his match with Echizen yesterday. Echizen was saying something in English, most likely a taunt due to the tone. One of Rikkai’s members then suddenly said something like this: “You still have a long way to go, you seaweed head.” He then went crazy…psycho!
Yet he is such a strange kid as he is so different when he is not playing tennis…he actually seems to believe that my hand is poisoned too… (9)
As for their buchou…I’ve talked to him a few times and he seems to be a nice person, although I am a bit weary of him as there are times when his smile resembles sensei’s smile whenever he is up to something. But I think he will definitely be very nice to you. You should be able to tell that he is the buchou quite easily due to the way his team mates behave around him.
The person wearing glasses in Rikkai is their ‘gentleman’ but apparently he and his doubles partner ‘the trickster’ (who is the very opposite of him) often disguises as each other. Since only their team mates can tell who is who, I think it is best to stay away from both of them.
Rikkai has a vivid date collector too, although he is probably less dangerous then Seigaku’s Inui as I have yet to see him distributing any sort of deadly drinks. But that does not seem impossible as they seem to be good friends.
The two of them are certainly the most annoying doubles pair I have ever played against! This is what they said as soon as they got on court.
“‘The probability of him hitting a cord ball within ten moves is 60%’. That is what you want to say isn’t it, Sadaharu?”
“Ah, as to be expected of Renji, although you are 1% off.”
“I should have guessed this, Sadaharu, since you have a much fresher data then me.” (10)
Oshitari Yuushi did not help by saying the following: “The probably of you getting a bit annoyed is 90%, no?”
I think the scary thing is that I might really have done that if I was playing perfect tennis.
But I haven’t, the last time I played perfect tennis was at the match against ‘Nagoya Seitoku. I am really glad to say… (11)

Ashita: Kuranosuke…I can’t help but to wonder whether you really do want me to visit you…

1- in my fan fiction Ashita is actually friends with Koharu and Yuuji as well, sicne Shiraishi is very close friends with them/

2- Atobe actually said something along this line in his un-official game with Sanada in the junior selection camp arcs.

3- this bit refers to my proper prince of tennis fan fiction, although I didn’t give his buchou a name before. But I finally decided that I should probably give him a name. So I just picked a name from a list of Japanese last names. But anyway, if you don’t want to know anymore, then just ignore the next bit. But basically in my story there is this whole thing of how Shiraishi was made into a regular in his first year, and he actually played doubles with his buchou, who personally taught him a lot. So as a result he really looks up to his buchou.

4- If you like Mizuki then I am sorry but I really don’t think he is on the same level as Fuji, while Shiraishi is one of the top senior players. Therefore, I think Shiraishi beating him 6-0 is very possible.

5- laughs…Shiraishi, what about your ‘ecstasy’? The thing is, I first read the manga in Chinese so I didn’t know the word he said is actually ‘ecstasy’ I just thought that it was something like ‘oh yeah!’ or ‘great!’. So that is probably why I never really thought about why he said it, I think when I knows that he says ‘ecstasy’ (when I watched the ova) I was already writing my fan fiction, so I never tried to explain why he would be saying that. Even now, I never think about why he would be saying that. (laugh)

6- The higa bit is probably the most serious bit in this whole scene. Once again, this bit has ideas from my proper fan fiction. These set of what if fan fictions are different, not really my proper fan fiction. But this story is based on the ideas of my proper fan fiction. So basically what he meant by him having hurt someone, is referring to what happened with him and Ashita.

7- I really don’t know what to write for Rokkaku…this is the best I can come up with. Once more, I really believe that Shiraishi being a buchou in only his second year played a large bit in the formation of his character. That is why I really believe he would be quite concerned and even a bit worried that Kentaru is a buchou in his first year as he is such a nice person.

8- I can’t recall how old I thought Watanabe was when I first saw him. I just remember being really shocked at how young he was, although I quickly reminded myself that this is prince of tennis…where appearance does not reflect real age. To be honest I think Watanabe must be one of the few people who actually look like his real age, although I do think he can probably pass off as a few years younger. (I am talking about the manga as I don’t really like how he is drawn in the ova.)

9- I think this is quite possible- well, if you based this on the various games and the ova commentary. In the ova commentary with Marui, when he was accused of having eaten the other’s lunch, he said the following: “It wasn’t me! It was…a caterpillar!!!” while in one of the games he gave a bug to the girl you get to play as he really thinks the bug is cute…Heck…even Momoshiro and Kikumara seemed to have believe that Shiraishi’s hand is poisoned! I really wish that Shiraishi said “What do you think?” instead of just telling them “It was a lie” Because seriously…

10- This I just randomly made up. The whole probability thing so don’t read too deep in it, it doesn’t really reflect my view or anything.

11- The letter basically trails off here. The idea is that this is just an extract in his letter.